Horizon Zero Dawn Is A “Nerd Dream Come True”, Says Guerrilla Games

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Every game developer wants its game to be as good as he/she envisions it. However, sometimes due to some design choices, developers have to change the game which does not matches their vision. But that is not the case with Guerrilla Games, the developer of Horizon Zero Dawn.

Speaking with Inverse, game director Mathijs de Jonge discussed how the idea of Horizon Zero Dawn came to be. According to Jonge, Horizon Zero Dawn is the dream come true for the studio, as they have spent so much time designing every expect of the game.

Horizon is a nerd dream come true for us, and we want this world to feel believable, so we invest a ton of time in every design. But it’s also about doing things differently: Almost every movie or game set in the future is dark and grim. More like a desert than the Earth we know.

He further explained the event that kickstarts Horizon Zero Dawn. According to Jonge, Horizon Zero Dawn is the result of another species taking over the world, a species who is sophisticated and has its own rules.

Horizon is the result of another species taking over. A species, by the way, that has their own society rules. Like there are shell walkers, for example, that carry resources around, and every animal has a unique function within society.

Jonge also revealed that the studio created a prototype of Horizon Zero Dawn with guns and rocket launchers. But the prototype was scrapped as it did not delivered in terms of gameplay.

Very early on, we had a prototype running in the Killzone 3 engine, and it was not a lot of fun. I mean, it was okay, but [it] didn’t deliver the gameplay we wanted to go for, because we gave our protagonist assault rifles, rocket launchers, and even a Gatling [gun].

Horizon Zero Dawn is scheduled to release on February 28, 2016 exclusively for PlayStation 4.